Gather Me

Gather Me

Chapter One

My Book of Bible Stories, Aesop’s Fables, The Berenstain Bears

Cooking was my mother’s greatest act of love. The air always smelled like onions and tomatoes, curry powder and thyme. I can see my mom standing in the kitchen, cooking jollof rice. Naturally, Nigeria’s best-­known dish is rich and complex, with many layers of spices and vegetables. The perfect combination of flavors. My dad is standing next to her, leaning over the wide black pot, inhaling the scent, and snatching up bites.

“Add a little bit more of this,” he says, waving at the powdered bouillon. Then he takes another bite and points at a pile of chopped onions and red peppers. “And a bit more of that!”

My mother pokes my father in the soft part of his tummy with her wooden spoon. “Oh, you don’t think it’s good, eh?” she says. “You think I don’t know how to cook?”

“Come on now, Henri.” My mother’s name is Henrietta but my father always called her Henri in this loving, singsong kind of way. “You know you are the best cook in the world. Which is why I have this little belly you are currently poking me in.”

They are laughing. They were always laughing back then. My father had a great laugh. He could find the humor in anything, and his laugh—­a deep, warm giggle—­was the kind that made other people laugh just hearing it, even if they weren’t in on the joke. Completely infectious.

My mother mockingly throws up her hands and turns back to the stove. “You are always laughing even when nothing is funny,” she says. But I could see from the way her shoulders jumped that she was still laughing, too.

In those days, conversations between my parents sounded like a song to me. Perhaps it was their accents, but there was something melodic in the way they spoke to each other. There was a flow and a rhythm. Their talk was filled with inside jokes and good-­natured teasing. They pleased each other, softened in each other’s presence. The salty-­sweet parley between them made me feel warm, safe, and content.

The playful banter between my parents differed from how my mother engaged with me, her firstborn daughter. Where my mother was raised there is no back-­and-­forth conversation—­in Nigeria children didn’t get to have an opinion. They quickly obeyed their parents, finished their food, and prayed for forgiveness. My mother valued obedience and respect over playfulness. So, in our household she and I never engaged in frivolous conversations, only stern instructions. Fix the table. Do your homework. Turn off the television. Read a book. Eat. Always eat. For my mother, raising a well-­behaved child was the ultimate goal.

I envied the ease my parents had with each other, but I never felt it extended to me. Unless we were sharing a meal. When my mother asked, “Did you eat?” I always sensed the deep concern in her voice and knew a warm, hearty meal would follow. “Did you eat?” was easily interchangeable with “I love you.”

She regularly prepared elaborate dishes: jollof rice, egusi soup, and my favorite dish, moi moi, for dinner. As the aroma of spices filled our tiny two-­bedroom apartment, I watched her move steadily about the kitchen. From the cabinet, she would pull out an array of ingredients: black-eyed peas, foil-­wrapped cubes of Maggi, and containers filled with tiny smoked dried shrimp. Our freezer was filled with square packages of spinach and fresh goat meat. Mysteriously labeled plastic bags with pungent spices littered our small kitchen counter. I savored the smell of grilled meat slathered with a generous mix of ground peanuts, ginger, and cayenne. The yams in our house were not orangey brown but instead white flesh and tough, dull-­brown skins that had to be peeled away with a knife. Whenever someone was ill, they were not fed chicken noodle soup. Instead, we slurped the fiery broth of pepper soup, which immediately cleared your sinuses and warmed your chest.

I was accustomed to our meals being colorful and full of unexpected flavors, always paired with white rice. Thick, rich stews that are meant to be eaten with fufu or plantain. All those spices and colors coalesced and brought my palette to life. The nourishment we received went beyond satisfying our hunger. Each plate was a vibrant connection to Nigeria. Every dish said, Eat this because I love you. I grew to understand there are numerous ways to express love. Sometimes it is a spoonful of rice or warm glass of milk before bed. My mother’s recipes were sacred and held our traditions. In between her loving preparations of food, there was no room to understand the struggles her daughter may be going through. No space to contemplate what it is to be a minority, to grow up Black in America. Instead, she fed and nurtured me the best way she knew how.

My parents survived the Nigerian civil war, also known as the Biafran War. It was a devastating conflict that took place from 1967 to 1970. My Efik and Igbo ancestors were on the losing side. The conflict resulted in significant loss of life, with estimates suggesting that more than a million people died, primarily due to starvation caused by a blockade imposed on Biafra. My father lost his father; my mother was separated from her mother for years. The impact of the war is ingrained in their memories, shaping their identities and influencing their perspectives on the nation’s history. The declaration of “no victor, no vanquished” by the Nigerian government was intended to promote reconciliation and unity after the war, but the scars of the conflict lingered for many.

Ten years later, my parents immigrated to the United States, moving through life with raw grief and perseverance. It has always been unclear to me what they anticipated in coming to the United States. I still cannot comprehend what they lost or who was left behind in order to start a new life. My parents never told me stories about the war. But by the time my brother, Maurice, was born in 1985, they had formed new identities that hinged fully on American aspirations. Because as immigrants, forgetting one’s complicated past was normal. Even expected. You landed in the land of the free, home of the brave, and started over. Yet unspoken generational trauma shaped our family dynamic, with secrets and never-­ending anxiety. Then there was the concept of being Black in America that carried a complex history and social significance that was rooted in the legacy of slavery, segregation, and systemic racism. The underlying tensions of American society and more awaited my parents. In contrast, I was raised understanding that my Blackness was intricate, ambient, and contained a multitude of definitions.

It was my father who built my confidence and grew my curiosity for the world. He named me Glory after his sister, who passed away before my birth. I was always proud to be her namesake. My name evoked an instant joy, reminding people of white church steeples and gospel hymns. When he shouted “Glory” on the playground, people turned and smiled. He was boisterous and loved to tell stories. Sometimes he would tell me tales from his own childhood, about Anansi the spider or Ajapa the tortoise, but usually he would make up his own stories, bringing the inanimate things in our house to life. He’d tell me about the secret thoughts of our dining room chairs, or how there was a whole world turning in the tufts of our red shag rug. Our home became its own kind of adventure. He made me believe there were stories all around us, and that he was able to just snatch them right out of the air.

Even as a little girl, love was a confounding sensation. Yet I always felt the most love with my father. Sometimes I would ask him, “How can you tell when somebody loves you?”

He would gently pull me close and whisper, “You can tell by their smile.”

“What do you mean?”

“When someone smiles their love is shining on you. You’ll feel warm inside.”

My father’s smile was wide and generous. He laughed easily, searching for your goodness within your grin. I loved being with him. Sometimes he would tell me to draw a map, and I would color a series of nonsense lines and dots with my crayons, and then he would pretend to read it.

“Let’s go outside! Your map says we need to find the tallest tree on the street and then take seven steps to the right!”

Delighted, I would follow him out the door, and we would run to find that tree and take our seven steps. “Now the map says that we must turn around two times and whatever direction we face, walk fifteen steps from there!”

He made it up as he went along, but I always felt like I was the one who was leading the way.

Often, he’d say that the map was directing us to go for a car ride. He’d buckle me into his old blue Beretta and just drive, telling me a story as we trundled down the road. “I am a pirate, and you are leading me to the treasure! The map says we should go to the mall, but the mall is now a jungle on this deserted island!”

I was enraptured, sitting in the front seat, my legs too short to reach the car floor and just barely able to crane my head up to see out the window, spellbound as my father narrated every turn and swerve. He made everything a grand adventure.